Man Who Drew Tomorrow: How Frank Hampson Created "Dan Dare", the World's Best Comic Strip

by Alastair Crompton

In this fascinating chronicle, author Alastair Crompton tells how artist, writer & visionary, Frank Hampson, created one of the most charismatic & enduring science fiction characters of all time. He is of course, Dan Dare - Pilot Of The Future, the full-colour lead strip, of Eagle comic, the classic UK periodical.The story is divided into 13 chapters, which includes The Birth Of Space Travel, Crux Of The Matter, Frank Hampson's Studio At Work, Night & Fog, plus The Long Goodbye.These are illustrated with rare examples of Hampson's art, period photographs, model sheets & the physical models used to bring the concept to creation. If you only get one reference work about Dan Dare & his creator, this has to be it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, Comics

216 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 1985

Reviews

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the second time I've read this book. The first time was just after it came out in 1985. With the passage of time I can't quite remember what I thought of it back then, but I guess there's an unconscious reason I've left it over thirty years to read it again (and truth be told, I'm not sure I would have re-read it unless prompted by a correspondence with a comics expert and cartoonist who was around at the time that the Eagle was originally published, and who had actually worked on the title). As you can see from the rating I've given it, I didn't think much of it this time around.

I have several problems with this book, but the main one is this: Crompton is unbelievably patronising in his attitude towards comics in general, and particularly any that come from foreign climes. In his mind, the only decent comics ever created were British ones, and most of those were rubbish too in his view—he's particularly scathing about American horror comics and British humour comics. In fact, the only comics that escape his offhanded dismissal, are those by Frank Hampson and his studio. I know that Hampson was the subject of this book, but even so, this is breathtaking parochialism. A passage that stood out to me in particular (and caused a sharp intake of breath) was this gem:

"Modern publishers say that the original Eagle would be a laughing stock today, old-fashioned and out of its time. I think the claim is nonsense, but be that as it may. The reason there isn't a publication for kids of the same calibre today, is because there aren't the men to create it. The Society of Strip Illustrators [sic] will tell you they can find the men to create it. But they don't. And they don't because they can't. And they can't, not because (as they believe) modern-day publishers are massed against them, but because they aren't clever enough. That's not a criticism(!); who can blame them for not being the best in the world?"

Aside from the sexist attitude enshrined in that passage (which is doubly infuriating seeing as Hampson had at least three female assistants at different times, all of whom were excellent artists), it sums up Crompton's absurd attitude. Look, to be sure, Hampson was a fine cartoonist--but the best in the world? Not even close.

The other area where, for me, this book falls down is in its discussions of Hampson's studio. Too often we're told that Hampson would draw that week's entire strip in "rough" form, and then turn the roughs over to his talented team of assistants to work up into the finished article. In this he was no different to cartoonists such as Hergé or Tezuka, but we're never really given a breakdown of who did what aside from some vague descriptions of the working practices of the studio. Crompton also dips into the politics of the studio, but shies away from really explaining the dynamics of studio life especially in light of Crompton's repeated assertions of Hampson's hands-on approach and attitude to working hours.

This last point leads on to another problem I have with the book, but one that's not necessarily down to Crompton—not entirely, anyway; everyone in the book, with the possible exception of Hampson's assistants, aren't shown as being the most sympathetic of characters. Hampson himself comes across as a depressive workaholic with no real business skills and a tendency to whine when things don't go his way (which they don't. Frequently), Marcus Morris is revealed as somewhat conniving and more than willing to feather his own nest at the expense of others, while taking the majority of the credit for the Eagle and its success, the people in charge of comics publishing at that time are portrayed as clueless, envious and of a Machiavellian character, and the rest of the supporting 'cast' are either cyphers or not mentioned at all. Now while I don't doubt that all of these people had their fallible, darker sides, there's no real nuance in Crompton's descriptions of them, and so they all come across as somewhat one-dimensional—rather ironic given Crompton's position on the output of the comics at the time.

Add to this the multiple typographical errors, and the small number of factual errors that crept into the book, and I really can't recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about one of Britain's most celebrated comics and the people who made it. A great shame, as it's a fascinating time in British comics history, and I'm sure a more even-handed approach would have paid many dividends.

I understand that Crompton himself wasn't happy with this book and substantially re-wrote it several years later. I'd very much like to read that updated version and compare with this one. Maybe in a few years time, but hopefully not thirty!

[Chris Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dan was the man I always wanted to be, Digby, his batman, was the man I saw myself as."

I first discovered Dan Dare as a boy when I bought one of the oversized Hawk Books editions of The Red Moon Mystery / Marooned on Mercury at a jumble sale. I lost count of how many times I read it, but I distinctly remember being enchanted by the beautifully detailed artwork that was unlike almost anything else in more recent children's comics. More recently, I've been thoroughly enjoying exploring the Dan Dare reprints from Titan Books with my two boys, and seeing their delight in both the illustrations and the immersive stories. Dan Dare is an iconic character in the pantheon of British comic book heroes, and this biography by Alastair Crompton is both an excellent portrait of the man who created Dan, Frank Hampson, and also of the wider context that saw Dan Dare published as the lead strip in Eagle.

When looking at the genesis of Eagle, Crompton is clear that the collaboration between Frank Hampson and Church of England clergyman Marcus Morris resulted in a publication that was unlike anything seen before in British comics: "Frank and Marcus took a look at the relationships between comics and their readers, and they discovered anonymity. Only very rarely did an artist actually sign his strip and this meant creators could get away with producing any old nonsense without fear of harming their reputations. And the editors of existing comics signed themselves 'Your chum' or 'The Editor,' possibly because editors changed so often that a steady relationship was impossible - though a pen name would have solved that - but, thought Frank, principally because the editors of children's papers didn't respect their readers enough to bother to introduce themselves. Both these defects Eagle rectified. Artists had to sign their artwork if they were to draw for Frank. This meant they had to put their reputations on the line, and the readers could, therefore, be sure of decent work. And part of the concept of Eagle depended on Marcus establishing a relationship with his readers, the better to mould their still malleable personalities." Eagle was a thoughtful, wholesome and high-quality comic compared to anything else on the market, and I think Crompton is right in identifying the credit and respect that Frank and Marcus gave to their readers.

Crompton draws extensively on existing interviews with Frank Hampson, and nowhere is this more effective than when explaining the choice between the two possible themes for the lead strip, science fiction or a Western. In his own words, Frank Hampson sets the Eagle in its contemporary context: "The best thing about science fiction is that you can keep changing the venue; if things get bogged down on Venus, there's still the rest of the universe to explore. The fifties were a time of terrific technical development, so sci-fi was enjoying a boom. And anyway, there was no way I could draw horses...I felt the prognostications about technology were too gloomy. Attitudes were too pessimistic, with The Bomb, the Cold War and rationing at the forefront of everyone's mind. I wanted to give hope for the future, to show that rockets and science in general could reveal new worlds, new opportunities. I was sure that space travel would be a reality. I had seen the innards of the V2 rockets while under attack in Antwerp and had been taken by the beauty and precision of the working parts. It seemed to me, somewhat ironically, as we were under constant bombardment by these machines, that here was the birth of space travel." While this may be, at least in part, a retrospective rationalisation, I do enjoy the thought of Frank Hampson in an air raid shelter getting more and more excited about humanity's future in the stars with every V2 that crashed down.

They do say that you should never meet your heroes, and while Dan Dare's character is unassailable, a much more unpleasant impression of his creator emerges when it comes to recounting the process of producing the strip week by week. In one sense, this is a fascinating study in the level of effort and commitment needed to produce works of art, because make no mistake, that is what the illustrations Frank produced are. Frank would begin over the weekend by sketching and painting rough work-ups for the following week's strip. As one of his team commented, these were of a higher quality than almost anything else published in comics at the time, but for Frank, they were only the beginning. Monday began with each frame being acted out and photographed in the studio, to ensure that physical and anatomic details were feasible and accurate. Many of the photographs reproduced in this book are fascinating, particularly those of Frank's father as Sir Hubert Guest - Robert "Pop" Hampson was in fact the inspiration for the character. By Wednesday, the photographic work would be complete, and work on the final illustrations would begin. These were completed by Friday evening for delivery to the publisher, and then the whole process would begin again. The descriptions of Frank's studio system are fascinating, but the idea of a whole team of artists working full-time on a two-page strip is a ludicrous indulgence. The fact that Frank held this system together for 10 years owes much to his force of character and the confidence Marcus Morris had in him, which he was able to communicate to the publishers, Hulton Press. The fact that they even published such a comic, with its unabashedly Christian values, is no less remarkable.

Nonetheless, a quite unpleasant side to Frank's character also emerges throughout this section of the book: "The average day began at nine, and more often than not, continued until two or three the next morning. Frank was as obsessional as ever about detail; he once asked Greta Tomlinson to draw a picture of a character water skiing. Four times, Greta drew the scene and four times Frank rejected it because the wake from the boat and water-skis didn't look as he thought it should. He accepted her fifth attempt but when she saw the frame pasted down on the final artwork, Frank had stuck a speech balloon over the wake she had worked so hard to get right...the long hours did no-one any good...surely such prolonged work was unnecessary and there were suggestions that if only Frank could get his administration a bit more efficient, the hours could have been reduced. Frank, too, was suffering and popping Dexadrines to keep alert. From his point of view, he needed every minute to work on his pictures; channels of communication came a long way second. But the strain was beginning to show." A fellow artist and long-time collaborator on Dan Dare, Eric Eden, met with Frank to discuss these concerns and was promptly fired for his trouble (though he would return a few years later). An obsessed, defensive and vicious artist, popping pills to keep himself awake while he drives his whole team into the ground, is not really what I had in mind when reading Dan Dare with my kids!

Another failure on Frank's part was his inability to navigate the world of big publishing. An enthralling portrait of British publishing emerges from Crompton's account, but Frank's interaction with the industry was disastrous. He was undoubtedly naïve, and fulfils perfectly the cliché of the hapless genius who encounters the hard nosed world of big business, but it also hard not to be frustrated with his complete lack of common sense and business acumen: "Frank was never able to negotiate his way through Fleet Street; he was up against people who may have been less intelligent but had a great deal more guile and ruthlessness, and despite a decade of outstanding creativity, he could not find anyone who was willing to use him." This contempt was not an attitude he was used to, nor one that he deserved, and it is clear that it broke him in the end (alongside his chronic overworking). Ten years of relentless self-imposed pressure left Frank with his health destroyed, and permanently embittered by what he saw as the lack of recognition and return from his hugely costly investment in his creation. After he departed from Eagle, Frank spent the next 15 years or so in the wilderness, a virtual recluse, hardly working and determinedly avoiding fans of his work. Recognition was to come belatedly, as he was acknowledged to be the best writer and illustrator of strip cartoons since the end of the Second World War by a panel of his peers, but Frank sadly died as a relatively young man of 66 in 1985.

While he may have been deeply flawed (and who isn't?), Frank Hampson's legacy is significant and enduring. Dan Dare is a remarkable comic creation, and The Road of Courage, Hampson's illustrated life of Christ, is an absolute masterpiece. He may have been mistreated and discarded by an uncaring industry, and he may have shamefully mistreated his staff in turn, but his creations live on and continue to bring joy and satisfaction to new generations of children (and adults), and that is no small thing.